Communion Week 3 – When?

Hi again.  Since we kinda jumped right into this thing, let me give you some background on our study and catch you up.  Our youth group is split up into the guys’ and girls’ classes on Wednesday nights starting after LTC and going into summer until all our traveling starts.  Our guys challenged themselves to learn more about the things we do in our worship services.  We wanted to know all the ins and outs and where they came from, so we chose to learn more about the Lord’s Supper given its memorial significance.  Since we wouldn’t have much time we split the study up into who, what, when, where, why, and how, and we assigned each question to one of our teachers or the older high school guys.  The goal was to read everything we could find in the bible that had to do with communion and present it to the class each week.

This week, Thomas brought us answers to the question ‘when’.  He put his heart into it and it really showed by how much we were all taught (thanks for fitting us into your school schedule, buddy).  Here are our notes.

A fitting verse for our study Thomas brought to our attention: “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” Col. 2:16-17

• Examples come from either Jesus, 1st century churches, or Israelite history
• Two methods of keeping time
  • Jewish – measure the begging of a day at evening
  • Roman/Greek – measure the beginning of a day at midnight
• Matthew 26:17-30
  • First day of feast of unleavened bread – the day the Israelites were brought out of Egypt (first month of the year, 14th-21st day, beginning at evening)
  • Around evening
  • Cup follows the bread
• Mark 14:12-26
  • When it was customary  to sacrifice the Passover Lamb (which was at twilight, ‘between the two evenings’)
• Luke 22:17-20
  • At the hour
  • Passed the cup, took the bread/ate supper, took the cup
• John 6
  • (no notes on ‘when?’)
• Acts 2:42, 20:7
  • ‘Day by day’
  • Met on the first day of the week
  • ‘Broke bread after midnight
• 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
  • When they were together as a church
  • On the night Jesus was to be betrayed
  • After he had given thanks
  • after examining himself
• Exodus 12:21-30
  • (Used to shed some light on the month, day, and time of the Passover, and how it should be taken)